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Plan Your Visit To The Central Florida Zoo

There’s so much to do at the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford, Fl. You can spend 2 hours or all afternoon exploring the park and getting some adventure in. Only half an hour outside of Orlando, this is the perfect stop to add into your vacation that will create life long memories. Follow this insider guide to get the most out of your zoo trip.

Plan Your Zoo Trip

1. See the animals – Central Florida Zoo has an impressive herpatarium with a nice collection of beautiful but deadly snakes, lizards, and frogs. My personal favorite is the Egyptian Cobra. All the of tanks are uniquely decorated to represent the animal’s natural habitat and the building has AC! Make sure to catch the lemurs swinging on their ropes and see the leopards lounging about.

2. Zoom Air Adventure – This zip line course is serious fun. Make sure you get there first thing in the morning so you don’t have to wait behind scaredy cats! There are two courses you can do which involve rope courses, zip lines, and various obstacles to overcome. Every once in a while there’s a Groupon available for this course. The best zip line goes over the pond/parking lot area to get you to the second course.

3. Feed the Giraffes – $5 gets you right next to a huge giraffe to feed. Just reach up with some tasty lettuce and a 20 in. tongue emerges to pluck it from your hand. Since there was a zoo keeper available we asked her a bunch of giraffe questions. How many breeds are there? 9. What type is the one we’re feeding? Rothschild. How are they different? Based on their patterns and coloration.4. Ride a camel – At $5/person, it’s a decent deal to go for a short ride. We of course peppered the zoo keeper with a million questions about camels. What are in their humps? Mostly fat. Why are their poops so small? They’re so efficient their bodies use 90% of the food they eat. How many breeds are there? Two, 1 hump and 2 humps.

5. Catch some new Pokémon on Pokémon Go! – There are several Pokestops as well as a gym in and around the zoo. We walked around for a few hours and caught all kinds of critters like your run of the mill pidgey and ratata to squirtle and bellsprout. Find a shady spot to sit and set up a lure to get the Pokémon to come to you! You’ll have company though. We chatted with and overheard a decent amount of people also out catching.

6. Up close encounter with rhinos – Get up close and personal with rhinos. This is only at specific times so we of course missed the last one but if we had gone we would’ve asked a billion questions about rhinos.

7. Meet the keepers – A place where we can ask keepers a billion questions about animals? Perfect! At various times of the day, meet the keepers that care for the zoo’s animals for demonstrations and Q&A. We were able to catch the crocodile feeding and chat with the keeper, Andrew G., who is really passionate about reptiles and “basically a walking encyclopedia”¹ about his beloved animals.

8. Bird Show – Meet some birds of prey like the adorable screech owl who doesn’t actually screech and watch some bird training at the bird show. Trainers bring out some hawks and owls to see and talk about their habitat and diet.